It is an unlikely friendship; the multimillionaire entrepreneur from Adelaide and the drug dealer turned artist on death row.

But when Shane Yeend – the man behind the Fifty Shades of Grey party board game – made a silent bid at an art auction several years ago he never dreamed it would lead to him meeting the Bali nine ringleader Myuran Sukumaran.

"He's a really good bloke. He made a stupid mistake and ended up in the worst stupid mistake situation."

Now Mr Yeend hopes to leverage his fundraising skills – the charity arm of his global media and gaming company Imagination has raised $7 million since 2004 – to establish a foundation in Sukumaran's honour.

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The foundation, which would have a six to eight member board, would bankroll the rehabilitation programs Sukumaran helped establish in Kerobokan prison.

These include art, sewing and computer graphics classes and a T-shirt printing business.

Fellow prisoners in the jail say the bengkel – the Indonesian word for workshop – was a meth lab before it was used for Sukumaran and Chan's rehabilitation projects.

They are terrified the programs will be abandoned when the two men are killed and the bengkel will be taken over by drug lords.

"It makes sense to try to put something together that would give these things some longevity if the worst case scenario happens," Mr Yeend said.

The 2007 Ernst & Young Australian entrepreneur of the year has made most of his money by acquiring the rights to market interactive games based on popular culture such as Deal or No Deal, Big Bang Theory, Star Wars and Fifty Shades of Grey.

In 2012, his company, Imagination, bought the rights to Australian television icon Humphrey B. Bear.

Mr Yeend is also the only person in the world who has the licensed rights to sell the image of the Hollywood sign in LA on prints, postcards, posters and other products.

The multimillionaire has kept a low profile on his visits to Kerobokan jail: "I've always wanted to stay under the radar. I stopped in just before Christmas and Myu was like: 'There is a new president, it will be fine, it will be two years before he ends up knocking back my clemency plea'. I came back two months later and it was game on."

On Friday, almost certainly Mr Yeend's last ever visit, he didn't know what to say or do. For the first time he met Sukumaran's mother, Raji, sister Brintha and brother Chinthu.

"It was pretty soul destroying to see them sitting there feeling hopeless. It was very hard to talk ... Let's just pretend, we'll chat and not get sad. What do you do?"

And so, Mr Yeend came up with the idea of a foundation to continue all the work Sukumaran has done.

He was up all night working on a constitution for the foundation, which he has just sent to Sukumaran and his brother. "The hardest part is working on a legacy project when you want the guy to live," Mr Yeend said.

"Hopefully a miracle will happen and he will sit on the board but it's not looking good. But I think Myuran is quite excited about the fact he will live on no matter what."